Somebody stole my idea!
Nick Coates February 21st, 2008
Once upon a time, I had a great idea. An invention that was to revolutionalise travel. I was in the middle of a backpacking sojourn in 1990 - which was, incidentally, regarded as exotic and adventurous by my friends and family at the time, but is now merely called a ‘gap year’, filling the space between university and a proper job.I was sat, nursing a ‘SAIGON’ beer with similarly scruffy, lank-haired, unwashed friends, on a beach in Central Vietnam (possibly). No doubt, we were bemoaning just how difficult travelling can be (thus emphasising how intrepid we were). Similar to package tourists in Spain trying to order a cerveza - though we would never have admitted this - we bemoaned the locals not understanding our Lonely Planet-inspired attempts at basic Vietnamese.
And this is when I invented the ‘travel t-shirt’ - every traveller’s best friend! Needless to say, after getting over-excited and carried away in the eureka moment, I then promptly forgot all about it, continued on my travels and got myself that proper job with Audley when I returned home.
That was until today, when I have just stumbled across this on the web.
“TRAVELER’S PHRASE BOOK T-SHIRT
If you are traveling a lot and don’t always know the language of the country you are visiting, then this T-shirt is for you. It has a phrase book printed on it so just point a finger at the pictogram you need and then point it twice at the question mark, which means, “Where is it?” and in no time you have found what you were looking for… or not.”
http://andfunforall.blogspot.com/2007/10/egg-holder-realy-cute-egg-holder.html
This was my idea!!! (although I did have ‘beer’ added as one of the options). Now who were those other intrepid travellers who witnessed my brainwave?? By my reckoning someone owes me some cash…..
- General
- Comments(2)
What a great idea Nick! I bet you wish you’d jumped on that one…
PS What does the numbers symbol mean? Calculator?
Dear Nick
I know exactly how you feel as I had a similar experience just 2 weeks ago when I went to my local pub to see some bloke wearing a T-Shirt with a picure of a man in a business suit wearing a turban and the words URBAN TURBAN underneath. It was also 1990 (popular year for exotic backpacking sojourns!) when my friend and I had the whole business worked out, based on the Tie Rack model with outlets in all London Stations and airports, during a 4 day (very painful) camel trek in Rajasthan. Just because we never got round to putting it into practice doesnt mean it wasnt still our idea. A strange co-incidence in timing or some backpacker hanging around Asia with large ears?(and more motivation than us)! If you catch up with them, they owe me some cash too.